A blog for full-time faculty, adjunct faculty, support staff, and friends of Ocean County College who are concerned about the current negative campus climate.
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"Psychopathy also reminds us of the importance of negative affect in social intercourse—its crucial role in learning appropriate social behavior, in suppressing antisocial actions, and in developing a conscience. If you feel no social pain, then a life-destroying mutilation has about the same significance as a lighthearted prank."

Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality by Patricia S. Churchland

Our troubled troll has yet to find some solid structure on which to hang a cogent thought. An earlier effort in addressing the faulty logic, I see, went unheeded. So here we go again, this time complete with a mini-glossary of logical fallacies:

Ad hominem Appeal (attacking the man instead of addressing the issue):
“Still seeing the babies whining and crying about . . . . “ (Aside from the deep daddy issues in this infantile imaginative framing, name calling is a pathetic substitute for a mature counterpoint to the premises, propositions, and evidence of others.)n

Non Sequitur (faulty cause and effect):
“Admin should reorganized [sic] faculty and adjunct professors so the students get a better education.”
(Jon Larson is a recidivist reorganizer, foisting a major restructuring every 2-3 years, yet a “better education” for students has yet to follow under this record of administrative deficit disorder.)

Either/Or Reasoning (reducing complex issues to two polar alternatives):
“If your [sic] not happy with the policy’s [sic] and politics at the college THEN LEAVE!”
(By this reasoning, Troubled Troll, your apparent displeasure with the Affordable Health Care Act should compel you to leave the country.)

Straw Man (addressing an artificial proposition, one never advanced in the debate):
“. . . JUST FIND A BETTER JOB WHERE YOU FEEL YOU’LL GET MORE RESPECT.”
(The faculty posters on this blog have the job for they worked hard to pursue and fought hard (in some cases) against hundreds of applicants in a national search to secure. We want better management, more competence, and professional accountability. Furthermore, no one here cares to have “MORE RESPECT.” We want not the respect but the resignation of those who can not exercise authority without misusing it.)

I have given you, Troubled Troll, the respect of this lesson in logic. Now show us in any future post that you have some for yourself.

It would be much better to be taught by faculty who are more interested in their careers than in doing a good job in the classroom, refuse to think for themselves, and kneel before authority. They can then transmit those qualities directly to the their students.

Oh, and we need more faculty who unquestioningly accept poorly written math textbooks that will hurt the education of the students (wink, wink).

We’ll have them all wear brown shirts and jackboots. It’ll provide the right moral atmosphere.

Thank you, thank you for your wonderful sense of humor, WM (as in "what a dumbass," and that of some of the bloggers ("cute little troll?" I needed that and laughed my ass off. Makes me smile and heaven knows, we all need that in these difficult times. Might the Trollster be putting us all on with his or her fracturing of the language? Who could possibly be that lacking in basic writing skills?

So sad... Its sad times at OCC. Still seeing the babies whining and crying about the same nonsense sickens me, outright sickens me. Admin should reorganized faculty and adjunct professors so the students get a better education. Coming here and seeing the way some of you staff members think about the college, how does one know if the students at occ are getting the right eduction?

If your not happy with the policy's and politics at the college THEN LEAVE! STOP HOLDING BACK YOUR ANGRY AND FEELINGS, JUST FIND A BETTER JOB WHERE YOU FEEL YOU'LL GET MORE RESPECT!

Things arent going to change at the college as much as you all hope they will, they wont! And with the affordable health care act kicking in, things are going to get worse when they do lay off's and another reorganization of departments.

An honorary name comes to mind for this program option, WM, yet restraint rules (even among teeth grinders) when the alternative could bring disgrace, by association, to anyone on the ALT who might not be a stranger to the concept of meritocracy.

The most frightening thing about our cute little troll is that, given his lack of reading comprehension and writing skills, this person works/ed at a college.

Forget about the masochism of praising those who harmed him, it's this paucity of cognitive skills that gives me pause.

And this troll may have been a dean? Yikes!

Of course, it's emblematic of the dumbing down that afflicts our college. Can you believe someone like this worked here and actually had a position of authority?

And really little Troll, can't you think up your own handle? Such lack of imagination. Tsk, Tsk. Wait: this lack means you'd fit in perfectly at OCC!! That is . . . if you’re not already working there . . .

The post mentioning the bottles of JD casts no aspersion upon Jan Kirsten, who is conscientious and respectful towards all. She does not decree saturnalia and choose whom to exclude from college activities, social nor academic.

She was simply an innocent participant in an iconic emblem. If you can't get an education, Troll, get some imagination.

Bebop...as if I could not get any more depressed. I don't know about the rest of you folks, but in all my years here and seeing things I'd like to forget (firings, hirings, promotions, grievances, bullying,etc.), I truly believe this is the lowest point we have been at. I just do not know how to fix it. Can it be fixed? What can we do, as faculty, to reclaim our college? Had I not been at the last all schools meeting, I would not have believed that our concerns were so rudely brushed off.

We whiners and worry wankers, Get Up Stand Up, just can't comprende the New Normal: Teachers are OUT and Student Completion Rate Technicians are IN.

One current interim school dean, as a Lecturer II, dropped a load of thirty credits to accept the appointment. One reputed assistant program chair, as an adjunct road warrior, dropped a load of thirty credits to accept the Lecturer II appointment this year. This could explain why we dare not discuss the standards for selection of our academic administrators.

The new recruitment poster for Student Completion Technicians should include a photo of Jan Kirsten arranging JL's bottles of JD at the "invitees" Gateway Gala last Wednesday. No kidding, she was doing so just as the chapfallen collaborators for real college filed out of Wang's death announcement of teaching.

The cultural cleft is complete at OCC: The ones who need to suck it up and the ones who lead to suck it down.

Surprise, surprise, the college has discovered that one dean for several disciplines doesn't work.

So now we will have "Chairs."

Unfortunately, this "fix," like the original consolidation into schools, involved little or no faculty input, little forethought, and serves only to further alienate the faculty – you know, the people who actually do the teaching (which, last time I checked, was the reason we are a college).

In many cases, the disciplines will be "led" by overworked 12 month faculty with little experience at OCC and who thus lack the institutional history and deep understanding of our students and their needs. More to the point, when will they have time to do this? Their primary responsibility is teaching; they have a 7 course load -- and most teach overload as well). On top of this some of them will have to act as a “Chair”?

These faculty are not robots: they need to eat and sleep – and need to have a life. It would be nice if they could focus on teaching – again, the reason why faculty are hired in the first place.

Excellent analogy, Fed up. The presentation should have been wrapped up in pretty paper with a bow, though. Also consider the push for "completion contracts" as an outcome to the big sales pitch. Sign right here folks.... Makes me wanna puke.

Yesterday's all "faculty" meeting was more like a sales meeting than a meeting of academics. The showroom redesign complete with brown wrapping paper and blue duct tape was displayed and new products were trotted out. Information providers, formerly know as faculty, were exhorted to get customers, formerly known as students, into the showroom and sell them something, anything whether they need it or not. Sell, sell, sell.

LH (what's with your nom de plume?): Were you even AT the meeting??? Faculty did speak up. Made me proud. We got shut up. "Time to move on to next agenda item..." I did not hear whining, just legitimate questions about the process for filling the chair positions as well as the other topics at hand.

To be honest, no one spoke up on how they feel during the meeting. The thoughts and feelings that are expressed on this blog should of been done at the meeting. The meeting was nothing but a bunch of whining faculty members complaining about nonsense.

I, too, left the meeting feeling disgusted with the double-talking, disingenuous message from our VP. Do we have great transfer students because the faculty do such a great job of preparing them or are we "substandard" because of our passing rates?

How could a "democratic" process be followed in selecting departmental chairs when it's the first time any of us has heard of these positions and they are already filled.

"Give us your feedback" so that the administration can do as it pleases but claim that they asked for our input.

The hypocrisy & lies continue as some of our colleagues volunteer for "Honors Seminars". OCC is a cesspool and I fear what that makes us.

Maybe because she never reached out. That was an outright lie. The "appointments" as they were referred to did not require job posting and the chosen ones are mostly lecturers, some who just started the job this semester. Since the job duties are already written into the existing descriptions, we do not have to be happy about it, but we must accept it as a done deal. What we can extract from all the conflicting messages (anyone else have a headache after the meeting?) is not to expect honesty and transparency from the double talking VP who, as I recall, told us when she first was hired, that she was faculty oriented. Terribly depressing meeting.

--We want to know, faculty, your classroom technology needs (so long as they reach no further than the color of painter's tape on the packing paper covering the windows).

--We have reached out to faculty for months now, discussing the addition of Program Chairs (though we covet as a trade secret the position duties and the standards for selection).

--We commend the faculty for the quality of our transfer students: OCC Makes and the World Takes! (So now the focus should be on more passing grades to garnish the Student Completion Rates and maintain the healthy revenue stream).

I need medicine of some sort, maybe a disinfectant for the disingenuous.